Cory Stillman
Season four of HBO Max’s Hacks finds actress/comedian Megan Stalter in uncharted territory, as her character Kayla rises in the ranks to become a manager alongside Paul W. Downs’ Jimmy LuSaque. As a partner at the aptly named Schaeffer and LuSaque (or is it LuSaque and Schaeffer?), Kayla remains as hilarious as ever, but her new position also creates space for further complexity in Stalter’s performance, not to mention fresh comedic voices within the Hacks universe.
“I feel like Jimmy and Kayla have such a strange and powerful dynamic,” says Stalter. “The third person that comes in has to be really different from both of them.”
The show found that different voice to which Stalter is referring in the form of Randi (Robby Hoffman), Kayla and Jimmy’s new assistant. Hoffman provides a distinct sense of humor as Kayla’s nebbish underling. And for Stalter, the arrival of a new source of comedic relief signaled not only Kayla’s professional growth, but her own.
“One of my favorite parts of the show is how Kayla rides for Jimmy,” says Stalter. “To have someone come in and be on Kayla’s side is so funny.”
Indeed, Kayla has been a loyal friend and co-worker to Jimmy since the start of Hacks, but season four finds her advocating for him in increasingly essential ways. Stalter is particularly impressive in a late-season outburst directed towards Deborah and Ava.
Of course, Kayla still gets up to all kinds of hilarious antics across this new season, several of which center around the apartment she finds for Ava in an unlikely location: The Americana, or as Kayla affectionately refers to it, an “outdoor mall.” Ava lives above the mall, and Kayla cannot figure out for the life of her why she would not want to sleep above a Cheesecake Factory every night!
“It was very fun to film at The Americana,” says Stalter. “It has everything you could ever want: a movie theater, shopping, soft pretzels.”
Check out my full chat with Megan Stalter below! We dive deeper into what it was like to finally film Hacks in Los Angeles, and reflect on a few other hilarious projects from her budding career.
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